German Yearbook of International Law

The German Yearbook of International Law, founded as the Jahrbuch für Internationales Recht, provides an annual report on new developments in international law and is edited by the Walther Schücking Institute for International Law at the University of Kiel and published by Duncker & Humblot.

Since its inception in 1948, the Yearbook has endeavoured to make a significant academic contribution to the ongoing development of international law. Over many decades the Yearbook has moved beyond its origins as a forum for German scholars to publish their research and has become a highly-regarded international forum for innovative scholarship in international law. In 1976, the Yearbook adopted its current title and began to publish contributions written in English in order to reach the largest possible international audience. This editorial decision has enabled the Yearbook to successfully overcome traditional language barriers and inform an international readership about current research in German academic institutions and, at the same time, to present international viewpoints to its German audience. Fully aware of the paramount importance of international practice, the Yearbook publishes contributions from active practitioners of international law on a regular basis. The Yearbook also includes critical comments on German State practice relating to international and EU law, as well as international reactions to that practice.

Vol. 59′s Forum Section will evaluate the Paris Climate Agreement. In its Focus Section, several “frozen conflicts” and their interaction with public international law are presented. The General Articles Section will deal with the foundations of customary international law, ambiguity in law, the international crime of genocide, Certain Iranian Assets, EU Trade Agreements, and other subjects.

German Yearbook of International Law: Vol. 58 (2015)

The Vol. 58 of the German Yearbook of International Law opens, in the Forum section, with an exploration of the “weakness” of international law in the face of the Ukraine conflict.

The Focus Section goes on to document the results of a conference organised by the German Federal Foreign Office in co-operation with the University of Potsdam on “International Law, Cyber Space and the Concept of Due Diligence” and looks i.a. at possible lessons to be learnt from the Environmental Law context and potential legal frameworks and regulatory models for Cyberspace.

The General Articles take up diverse issues such as inter-State cooperation in witness protection, the divergence of post-award remedies in ICSID and non-ICSID, the Palestinian right to exploit the Dead Sea coastline for tourism, the General Comments of the UN Human Rights Committee, the relationship between international law and negotiated or adjudicated maritime boundaries and issues of State succession and colonisation as a formal problem of international law.

Articles in the final section discuss “German Practice” relating i.a. to the Federal Constitutional Court’s judgment on Muslim teachers wearing headscarves, the German Presidency of the UN Human Rights Council, the international legal framework for intelligence surveillance from a human rights perspective, Germany’s proposals for a temporary ‘Grexit’, and finally, an article from the Permanent Mission of Germany to the UN in New York details the German-Iraqi Initiative in the UNGA relating to the Destruction of Cultural Heritage as a tactic of war.